Douglas William Jerrold; John Jackdaw; Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. The Handbook of Swindling. London, Chapman and Hall, 1839.
Frontispiece, The Handbook of Swindling
Publication details, The Handbook of Swindling
via: The Internet Archive
I do like the way sunflowers look even before they fully blossom. There is something soothing about the deep fresh green, fuzziness and the prickly look that speaks to me.
And some of the residents seem to prefer the green buds over the fully open blossoms.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
From the French of Louis Figuier. Revised by E. Percival Wright. The Ocean World. London, Paris & New York; Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., 1872.
Cover photo via: Colby College, The History of the Book
Available to read at The Internet Archive
Today was a nice day, and I decided to take my camera and dance a bit around the row of sunflowers that my father has planted this year. I think we will plant them every year, they are beautiful and bees and bumblebees love them, as well as a plethora of other creatures. So this week stay tuned for some pictures from that.
This is the whole lot, looking east in the morning.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Parker Fillmore. Mighty Mikko: Finnish Folk Tales and Fairy Tales. Illustrated by Jay Van Everen. New York : Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922.
I’m overdue for highlighting Finnish Fairy Tales so our book this week contains a wealth of old Finnish folk stories translated for an English-speaking audience. Illustrator Jay Van Everen breathes life into the stories using graphic, modern drawings with geometric and abstract elements. There is only 1 colour plate in Mighty Mikko, but Van Everen was best known for his bright, colourful abstract paintings. Nonetheless, Van Everen’s black and white drawings for Mighty Mikko are bold and full of interest. The artist uses 2 different styles of illustration in the book – one for the first half of traditional tales and another for the second half of the book which contains the continuing saga of Mikko. Both styles are interesting and worth a good look so I’m going to break this post into 2 parts. Part 2 will be posted next Saturday.
Enjoy!
Olga Romanoff or The Syren of the Skies. A Sequel to “The Angel of the Revolution.” George Griffith. London: Tower Publishing Company Limited, 1894. First edition, first issue.
This book is a futuristic science fiction story told in melodramatic Victorian prose. The story was originally serialized in Pearson’s Weekly of London.
Cover photo via: Books and Art
The book is available to read at Project Gutenberg Australia
Opus has sent us another spectacular photo from his moss garden and I think this grouping looks like flowers dancing in the wind.
Moss garden, ©Opus, all rights reserved
Washington Irving. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Cover Art by Margaret Armstrong. New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1899.
The art nouveau cover of this 1899 edition of the classic book bears little resemblance to the plain editions that preceded it or to its many subsequent dark and creepy covers.
Cover photo via: Books and Art
The book is available to read at The Internet Archive
Joseph C. Sindelar. Nixie Bunny in Manners-Land. Illustrated by Helen Geraldine Hodge. Chicago, Beckley-Cardy Company, 1914.
Some more details of the tiles at Park Güell. It certainly is one of my favourite places in Barcelona, once conceived as a settlement for workers, with a sustainable water recycling facility and communal area. It was never finished, but has become one of Barcelona’s tourist attractions.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
You can see how the colourful tiles have been smashed up in order to fit them to all the curved surfaces.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
Here they look more random. Anecdote has it that the Barceloneses thought Gaudí was crazy for commissioning perfectly good tiles and the smashing them all up…
©Giliell, all rights reserved
The building to the left is not part of Park Güell but an older one.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
©Giliell, all rights reserved
This area is underneath the “balconies” we saw yesterday.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
It’s hard to see in the pic’s, but none of the columns goes up straight.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
This week we have another submission from VBFF, who tells me that they’ve placed these carved trees around the city where she lives as part of an effort to draw in tourists. I think this one is marvelous and I hope VBFF will send in a few more photos of these wonderful re-purposed trees …. hint, hint.
©VBFF, all rights reserved
John Muir. My First Summer in the Sierra; with Illustrations from drawings made by the author in 1869 and photographs by Herbert Gleason. Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911.
via: The Internet Archive
